The Arthur file — the single most persistent and embarrassing legacy of Juventus’s recent transfer history — is finally, agonisingly close to being closed. According to Sky Sport, significant contacts in the past few hours have brought the two parties considerably closer to a consensual termination of the Brazilian midfielder’s contract, which ties him to the club until 30 June 2027.
Why Termination Is the Only Remaining Option
The route to a consensual termination has become the only legally viable path for a very specific reason: with just twelve months remaining on Arthur’s contract, Serie A regulations prevent Juventus from placing him on loan again. A loan to Brazil or anywhere else — the option that has kept Arthur in some form of productive football across the past several seasons — is simply no longer possible. The choice, therefore, is between carrying him as an expensive and entirely unused member of the first-team squad for an entire season, or reaching a financial agreement that allows both parties to draw a line under a relationship that ceased to function several years ago.
The Numbers That Make This Story Almost Unbelievable
The financial context of Arthur’s Juventus career deserves to be stated plainly. He was purchased from Barcelona in the summer of 2020 — part of the same deal that sent Miralem Pjanić in the opposite direction — for a fee of €72 million. He will leave, after six years of loan spells at Liverpool, Fiorentina, Girona, and Gremio, having made 63 appearances and scored a single goal. A Coppa Italia and an Italian Super Cup are the only silverware he contributed to during Andrea Pirlo’s single season in the dugout. By any objective measure, it represents one of the most catastrophic pieces of transfer business in the club’s modern history.
The Summer That Finally Ran Out of Road
Gremio, the Brazilian club where Arthur was born as a professional and to which he returned on loan last season, had hoped to retain him permanently. The fee demanded by Juventus — approximately €10 million — was considered too high. Agent Federico Pastorello visited the Continassa multiple times over the summer to seek a resolution, but a sale proved impossible and a further loan became legally blocked. Consensual termination, with an appropriate financial settlement for the remaining year of contract, is now the most likely outcome.
The amount Juventus will pay to free themselves from this final year of commitment has not been publicly confirmed. Whatever the figure, it represents the last — and most humbling — chapter of a relationship that, in its entirety, has cost the club more than any other single personnel decision of the past decade. The summer’s window closes tonight. Arthur’s Juventus story is finally, nearly, over.
